


the whole is greater (than the sum of its parts)

by argentae



Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: (with a tiny sprinkle of canon divergence), 5+1 Things, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Depression, M/M, Therapy, discussions of mental health, generally negative thoughts about mental health and low self-esteem, this is all making it sound really sad but it's about getting help! really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:34:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23099407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argentae/pseuds/argentae
Summary: On a Wednesday when Matteo is thirteen, he figures out the longest way home.-or five times mental illness looked matteo in the eye and one time he looked right back
Relationships: Matteo Florenzi/David (Druck)
Comments: 32
Kudos: 136





	the whole is greater (than the sum of its parts)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [first1ove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/first1ove/gifts).



> wow, long time no see. this fic has literally been almost a year in the making. now we don’t have time to unpack all that! but i do want to say it feels like a bit of a miracle that i managed to finish this after all. it's still not perfect but i think i need to stop scraping away at it. and apparently all just in time for matteo florenzi appreciation week as well! won’t you look at that! 
> 
> the idea for this fic just never quite let me go. this boy just pulls at my heartstrings, folks, idk what else to tell you. i think he deserves to get some stuff resolved. 
> 
> also also also!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULIA [cue confetti, gentle headbutts from blue, cake, the whole happy shebang] i know you’re don’t really go here so it might be a little weird to gift you this, but i hope you might enjoy it anyway, and otherwise it’s the thought that counts (i hope)! anyway ily loads i hope you have the best day
> 
> title from bad blood by sleeping at last. 
> 
> enjoy!

**_i._ **

On a Wednesday when Matteo is thirteen, he figures out the longest way home. 

The first bit of the way he cycles with Jonas, as they have done for as long as they’ve been friends. Until a couple of years ago, Jonas’ mum would always come and pick up Jonas on Wednesdays because those were the days she worked from home. 

Matteo loves Jonas’ mum because she’s so much like Jonas himself – bubbly and funny, with soft brown curls and a bright laugh. He loves her because when her eyes shift from her son to Matteo, they’ll crinkle in a kind of gentle way that Matteo marvels at. She always wears red lipstick. She would make Matteo and Jonas cycle on the inside of the road so she was always in between them and the traffic. 

Matteo loves her because she would always, always ask him if he would like to come over for a while. And whenever Matteo allowed himself to take her up on the offer (which is not often – he needs to make sure he doesn’t overstep, doesn’t become too intrusive) she would also ask him, without fail, if he’d like to stay for dinner. 

Matteo loves her, but having to see her waiting for Jonas every Wednesday also made him resent Jonas just a little bit. Just for a moment, something ugly would scrape away at Matteo’s insides. Seeing her was a stabbing reminder of who wasn’t there.

It didn’t only make him resent Jonas, it made him resent his mother, and his fathe, and himself, and it’s not a nice feeling to have so Matteo would shove it down heavy-handedly by making a dig at Jonas, spurring his friend to punch him in the arm, or laugh, or do any of the other things that Jonas does to draw Matteo away from his own thoughts. 

So, when Jonas tells Matteo proudly that he convinced his mum to just let him cycle home on his own, Matteo tells himself that he should be relieved. That he should be happy, even. 

Now it’s just him and Jonas cycling together, zigzagging empty roads once they’re out the busiest part of the city. Jonas will still invite him over, but Matteo takes him up on the offer less and less, shrugging about homework – Spanish, always Spanish, because that’s one of the only classes he doesn’t share with Jonas – and by now Matteo has used the excuse so many times that Jonas genuinely believes his Spanish teacher is the Worst Person Alive, so he’ll just groan sympathetically when Matteo tells him he has another whole chapter of exercises to finish. 

In truth, Matteo has no idea what he’s supposed to do for his Spanish class. There’s so much to do for everything that most of the time, he can’t be bothered to even start. Usually he only checks their class’ group chat to see what homework people are stressing about and makes whatever assignments from that he understands.

In truth, Matteo feels the guilt gnawing away at him every time he makes up an excuse to not be home after school, making him feel so nauseous that he figures he shouldn’t try to get out of it anymore. It’s a constant fight, the unease swirling in his stomach against the uncertainty of not knowing what situation he will face when he does get home. 

So today, when Jonas turns the corner with a “See you tomorrow!” Matteo puts his feet to the bike paddles and pushes once, twice, three times. He waits, the bike slowing to a stop when he doesn’t put in any more effort to keep it going.

Then he walks. 

Bike in hand, trying not to tread the lines in between the pavement tiles. 

(If he manages to stay off the lines, if he manages to stay off the lines, if he manages to stay off the lines...)

And maybe it’s not actually the longest way home. But it’s the longest way home he can take without that guilt making him get back on his bike and cycle home so fast his lungs feel like they’re going to burst. 

This way, it takes him twice the time it would usually. Matteo knows it doesn’t matter _how_ long he takes, because there is no one keeping track of his schedule. His father isn’t home, hasn’t been home for the past week (a business trip, he says, and Matteo has stopped wondering what part of his father’s business would require him to be gone so often), and his mother…

If it’s a good day, his mother will be happy to see him, might just ask him how school was, and if she can make him something for lunch. If it’s a bad day–

He steps on a line, and his heart stutters. 

A rush of something in his ears. Matteo closes his eyes for a moment, hands clenching around the handlebars of the bike before he pushes it away from him with all his thirteen-year-old might. It clatters to the ground. 

Immediately the shame rushes in, and he picks up the bike, blinks through the fog, and cycles the last couple of minutes home. 

(Punishment.)

The house is dead quiet. The creaking of the floorboards makes him flinch as he steps inside. It’s cold, and Matteo remembers with a start that he forgot to turn on the heating that morning. 

Guilt festers further. 

And further, and further, and _further_ , as he looks at the door to his parents’ room – though really, he should stop calling it that. His dad hasn’t slept there in months. 

Matteo isn’t sure what he’s so afraid of, why all his muscles lock up at the thought of moving closer to that room. There’s no danger awaiting him. He knows exactly what he will face, has the blankness of her gaze ingrained in his memory. And yet, he can’t…

He can’t. 

He makes himself a sandwich with peanut butter, throwing out some slices of bread that have been moulding in the cupboard for who knows how long. He brings his mum a glass of water.

(No meds. She ran out of them a while back and he doesn’t know how to get her more. He’s never been to see a doctor, except that one time Jonas broke his wrist after he fell out of a tree, and Matteo got to come along and help Jonas pick a colour for his cast.)

The room is stuffy. When he puts the glass of water on the nightstand, his mum stirs and despite Matteo wanting to run out of there, pretend he doesn’t hear her say his name, he can’t make himself. He sits down on the edge of the bed as she turns to him, slowly. 

“How was school?” her voice is raw, raspy, the sound of his bicycle tires slipping on gravel. 

“Fine,” he mutters, because it doesn’t matter what he says. 

For a moment they sit there together, in silence, as tiny pinpricks sting in Matteo’s fingers and toes. She takes his hand, and his eyes, which he’s kept trained on a stain on the carpet, dart towards hers.

What he sees there scares him to death, and he’s not sure if it is because it’s so strange or because it’s so familiar. 

He looks away. 

“I have to… homework,” he mutters, slipping his hand out of hers, clenching his fingers into a fist to try and make the pinpricks disappear. 

She doesn’t reply. 

He leaves without looking back and pushes his fingernails deeper into his skin. 

_**ii.** _

He sees it happen. It’s strange, actually, to watch it from the outside when you’re so used to experiencing it yourself.

The afternoon had started off just fine – Hanna and he had decided to study together because Jonas is away for the day on some trip with his social sciences class, and unlike him, the both of them are kind of behind on their shit. 

Matteo likes Hanna. A lot.

He kind of hates himself for how much he likes her, how much he enjoys being around her. It makes the ugly thoughts he has about her and Jonas sometimes all the more terrible. Because in truth, he thinks Hanna and he are a lot alike. More alike than Jonas and him. He thinks they both drift along, struggling to find their footing around the rest of their busy-body peers.

Sometimes when he talks to Hanna, he gets the sense she feels the same fear he does – this worry of being left behind if you don’t work every second to keep up. Of it only being a matter of time before people realise you’re just free riding, just pretending to be fun enough to keep around. 

The difference, of course, is that Matteo knows Hanna’s fear is unfounded.

Because Hanna is warm, and soft, and kind, and she smiles at him like she actually cares, and she asks Matteo what he’d like to do even if Jonas sometimes only has eyes for her when the three of them hang out. Everyone would be lucky to have her on their side. 

As for Matteo… He thinks about how ugly his thoughts can get and hopes no one will ever find out because he’s sure, sure to the very core of his being, that he’ll lose them. Jonas and Hanna. His mum. Even Abdi and Carlos.

Then he’ll have no one.

And maybe that’s what he deserves, but Matteo isn’t a brave or good enough person to own up to that fully just yet. So for now, he’ll keep on clinging to these people, and hope they will let him.

They want to order pizza but Hanna’s dad forgot to leave them money. Matteo offers to make them pasta when their stomachs really start to grumble, because a simple pasta aglio e olio is still the only decent, semi-nutritious meal he can make.

Hanna, in the meantime, keeps her head buried in her German literature book, which she’s been stuck on for the past couple of hours. He doesn’t think she’s turned a page in the last 20 minutes but he’s not sure whether to say something about it.

Their phones buzz at almost the same time, meaning it’s probably either Jonas letting them know what he’s up to or someone in their class’ group chat checking up on homework.

“Fuck,” Hanna says suddenly.

“What?”

“Did you know we have a history test tomorrow?”

Matteo didn’t know that. He shakes his head slowly, feeling instead of stress a strange kind of detachment wash over him as he adds pasta and salt to the boiling water.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Hanna keeps cursing under her breath as she grabs her bag, probably looking for her history notes. “I left my books in my locker. Do you have yours with you?”

He shakes his head again. “Just say you couldn’t study and then you can probably take it later.”

She’s either not listening or she decides not to deem that worthy of a response because the next thing he hears is her upturning the bag on the kitchen table.

He watches her for a moment from where he’s standing in the kitchen and notes distantly how weird it is to see panic like that in someone else. He knows the feeling, can almost start hearing the buzz in his ears, feel the tingling in his fingers, the pounding of his heart – but really, he just feels numb. Far away.

It’s not necessarily a pleasant feeling, but he supposes it’s better than the panic.

“Hanna, it’s fine, people retake tests all the time,” he tries.

“It’s not _fine_ , I can’t fail this test because I already failed the last one and I don’t have time to retake it later because I already have too much shit to do and if I fail one more test they’re going to call my dad and he’s going to want to talk to me about it and I just can’t–” she has to stop for air, but she doesn’t seem to be able to take a proper breath.

It’s the look in her eyes when she turns to face him that finally manages to kick him into gear, leaving the pasta behind. He feels a little like he’s left his brain behind, too, as he sits on the chair next to her and tries to remember what usually helps him when he’s sat in his room, unable to move or breathe or think properly.

“Hanna, hey,” he mutters. “Try to take deep breaths okay.”

“I can’t,” she manages. “I can’t– I think, I think I’m going to pass out–”

“You’re not,” he says, and he tries to sound reassuring but even his own voice sounds like he’s hearing it through glass.

He remembers googling the symptoms after the first time it happened, after lying on his bed for half an hour wondering if he was having a heart attack, if he was going to die here and no one was going to find him because his mother hadn’t gotten out of bed for a week and his dad was gone, and maybe he’d just lie there and die and decay and no one would ever–

“You have to breathe,” he repeats, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“I am, I’m trying, I am.”

“You won’t pass out, you can’t,” he says, as he starts to recall parts of that WebMD article, “your body is doing like, the exact opposite of passing out.”

Tears spill onto her cheeks, but she brushes them away roughly, frustrated. She keeps looking at him, frantically waiting for him to say more.

“It’s the whole fight-or-flight thing we learned about, remember? Your body is producing adrenaline because it thinks it’s in danger. So you can’t pass out. Your body literally won’t let you.”

Matteo doesn’t tell her it sometimes helps him to punch something because he doesn’t want her to hurt herself. He doesn’t even know if it helps, really. Sometimes it just feels good to focus on something else than the fear.

“Just try to breathe,” he says again. “Like this. Through your nose, all the way to your stomach.”

He feels kind of stupid, over-exaggerating the deep breaths, but he does it anyway. And slowly, he can see Hanna’s breathing synchronise with his own. Her whole body seems to relax just a little bit as she notices she’s able to take full breaths deep into her lungs again.

After a couple of minutes, she averts her gaze. The hands with which she’d been keeping his underarms in an iron grip let go, trembling still. He can tell she’s embarrassed when she immediately clasps them together to hide it. He doesn’t think she has any reason to be, but he understands the urge.

“The pasta,” she mumbles, and he takes it for the cue it is. 

It ends up slightly overcooked, but neither he nor Hanna mentions it as they sit on her couch watching some shitty reality tv show.

At some point, she turns towards him. “How’d you know what to do?”

Matteo shrugs, taking a second to take another bite of pasta before looking back at her. “Seen it happen before.”

She nods slowly. He’s not sure if she believes him, and he’s also not sure if he can find the energy to lie about it right now. For a second it looks like she’s going to ask more, but she stays quiet. Then–

“Thank you. I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t been here.”

Matteo’s stomach twists at her gratitude. “You’d have been okay. It’s not actually dangerous. And it usually stops after like, twenty or thirty minutes at most, so.”

“Still.”

He looks away. Shrugs again.

“It’s going to be okay with the test, you know,” he says then. “Just tell Herr Fischer that you were sick, you couldn’t study. People make up excuses all the time and he doesn’t give a shit. You can just take it later.”

She nods once more, and while she still looks pretty miserable and tired, Matteo thinks he can also see a tiny bit of relief by the way some tension ebbs out of her shoulders.

He wonders if he’d feel relieved to tell someone the stuff that goes on in his brain sometimes, but quickly stops that train of thought.

No point in hypothesising something that won’t happen anyway.

**_iii._ **

Matteo loves his friends, he really does.

It’s something he’s known for longer, but these past couple of weeks it’s really come into focus. He loves that they’re still the same dumbasses as they were before he yelled at them in a weed-induced haze, before he came out to them, before the rest of this mess. He loves that he’s sitting here waiting for David to get here and he’s not really worried about that at all because he loves David and there is simply no way they won’t love David too. 

That’s not the problem. 

The problem is that Matteo is just so _tired_. 

It’s the kind of tired where he doesn’t even have the energy to be frustrated about it, to be angry at how quickly and easily it’s snuck up on him this time. 

David had amusedly told him yesterday evening that it’d probably be a good idea for Matteo to go home for the night, get some of his own clothes, let his flatmates know he hadn’t left their company permanently.

(“I’ve sent them a message in the group chat,” Matteo had argued, sleepy from his four o’clock nap. “They know I’m alive. They won’t miss me.”

“Hans said they’re putting your room up for grabs on Facebook if they don’t see you by tonight,” David had said, grin audible in his voice. “Stop grumbling. It’s not attractive.”

Then he’d kissed Matteo anyway, so he thinks it couldn’t have looked too bad.)

And no matter how much Matteo would have liked to stay, knowing the warmth of David’s body and the sound of whatever music he’d put on would lull him to sleep more easily than his own bed ever could, he also realised that David might need a moment. A moment to sit and talk with his sister, who’d spent the last week at least as consumed with worry as Matteo had. A moment to settle back down. 

So he left, with a kiss for the road that he immediately stowed away safely in his memory to be revisited later.

By the time he’d made his way back home, it felt like the last couple of days – hell, the last couple of weeks – had caught up with him. They clawed at him until his shoulders slumped, heavy with an exhaustion he hadn’t realised was devouring him. 

There was a moment of panic that night, when he was lying in bed, his room bathed in the light coming from the lamppost outside, and he thought,

_Oh._

_So this will never stop_. _No matter the good, no matter the changes, no matter the love (the love, the love – the word still tastes strange), this will always be here._

It threatened to drown him right then and there, to swallow him up whole in the depths of the night, to make him disappear entirely.

For a moment, he wanted to let it.

The stream of light coming in from outside covers part of his bedsheets and Matteo remembers thinking that if he could just reach out his hand and bring it into the light, he’d feel better, but his limbs felt like they were stuck to the mattress.

He wanted to call David, just to hear his voice for a moment, but he’d worried about David already being asleep, he’d worried about coming off as clingy, he’d worried, and worried, and worried, until his body caved to the exhaustion and he woke up again early the next afternoon.

He managed to shower and eat some toast before the boys showed up a couple of hours later. Now, he nurses a beer and lets them do most of the talking, Jonas’ gentle strumming encouraging his thoughts to drift off. 

It’s not even like he’s actively unhappy, in that moment, looking at them. How could he be? He just feels like he’s not really there. Like he could yell at them again and they wouldn’t even hear him. Or maybe like they could yell at him and it wouldn’t even touch him, which is possibly even worse. 

Before those thoughts can engulf him entirely, Matteo presses his nails into the palms of his hands, forcing himself to stay present, to listen to what is happening around him.

“That doesn’t mean no woman will ever want to sleep with you,” Jonas says, and Matteo is really _this_ close to rolling his eyes when he sees Abdi’s miserable face. 

“I’d sleep with you,” Matteo mutters. 

“Really?” The fact that Abdi sounds genuinely excited about this newly revealed information should negate the regret Matteo feels about the white lie, but with Jonas and Carlos throwing him amused glances, he can’t quite make himself commit. 

“No, but I thought it might make you feel better.” 

If anything, that gets a laugh out of the other two boys. When Carlos continues to ask him what is definitely up there with the Straightest Question Ever Asked, Matteo has no energy to pretend. Jonas, thankfully, takes it in stride.

(Matteo wonders if he’ll ever be able to tell him about it. The confusion, and the feelings, and the whole messy deal of it all.)

The bell rings and Matteo’s heart jumps up together with his body. 

Despite it all, when he opens the door and sees David’s smile, radiant, brilliant, it kindles the smouldering embers in Matteo’s chest. How could he do anything else than smile back? 

“I missed you,” David says, and _oh god_ , Matteo missed him too. 

He knows it’s stupid – they saw each other yesterday, after all – but everything inside him breathes relief at the feeling of David’s arms encircling him. He thinks that maybe, David feels the heaviness that’s been resting on Matteo’s shoulders, because his arms tighten around Matteo for a moment before he lets go and holds Matteo at arms-length. 

One hand reaches up, pushes a bit of hair out of Matteo’s face. When it falls down his cheek and comes to rest in his neck, Matteo fights the urge to lean into the soft touch. Instead, he meets David’s eye for a long moment. 

The way David looks at him takes him apart right where he’s standing.

The fact that anyone would ever look at him with that amount of care is something Matteo had deemed impossible until very, very recently.

He still does, sometimes. 

But here David is anyway.

He’s a wonder if Matteo has ever seen one. 

(Sometimes, Matteo thinks he might get crushed under the weight of how unworthy he feels.)

David doesn’t ask if he’s okay. He just squeezes Matteo’s arm softly before leaning in and kissing his cheek once more, as if for courage, before gently guiding him back into the living room. 

When they sit down, David twists towards him enough that Matteo can comfortably make a home against his side, David’s arm around his shoulder, pulling Matteo into him just a little more. David makes it look casual, as if they’ve done this a million times already, as if they’ve never done anything else, and Matteo feels appreciation burn in his chest.

It’s easy to drift off again now, with David’s fingers tracing patterns on the back of his hand and the appreciation turns into guilt when he thinks of how this is the first time David is being confronted with his absolute morons of friends and Matteo is basically leaving him to fend for himself. He feels guilty for wanting to sink into David’s warmth even further, for wanting to disappear from view entirely.

Sometimes the physicality of his own body, his entire being, makes him want to shed his own skin. Sometimes he wishes he could float in emptiness. Just _be_ , untouchable, even if only for a while. 

Then David’s fingers tangle through his, and there is no need to fake familiarity when it comes to that. 

Matteo squeezes softly. _Thank you_ , it says.

David’s return squeeze comes almost immediately. _No thanks needed_.

_**iv.**  
_

It’s a funny feeling, walking the school’s halls with David, mostly because it sends Matteo right back to the first time they talked, and how that simultaneously feels like it happened a million years ago, and like it’s hardly happened at all. He wonders what it’d be like to see the version of himself he was ten weeks ago.

How much has changed.

(How much hasn’t.)

It feels a little strange to say he’s grateful for David, because he’s not sure who or what he’d be grateful to – except for maybe to David himself.

He’s pretty sure David doesn’t really want his gratitude, though.

Matteo likes that even though they haven’t known each other very long, he has this distinct feeling of _knowing_ David. It’s vaguely related to the instant comfort he felt when he met Jonas, but it’s also different.

It means knowing David is nervous about meeting the principal and the gym teacher despite putting on an air of ease and calm, and it means not feeling like a complete idiot when he goes, “Secretary’s office” and makes some ominous sound effects to go with it, because it makes David smile and that’s worth acting a bit silly for.

“You really don’t have to wait here,” David says.

“I want to, though,” Matteo says, and it’s freeing, just telling someone what he wants and having it be true.

David looks him up and down in a way that makes Matteo’s stomach somersault. He’s never liked looking at himself much, but he likes David looking at him, even if he’s not entirely sure what there is to see.

The waiting that follows when David’s gone into the office is annoying mostly because it leaves him alone with the sound of the principal’s secretary typing away, and his own thoughts.

He fiddles with the small fake plant on the front desk and thinks he should maybe get a plant, then thinks he shouldn’t because he’d surely let it die, then remembers David has a lot of plants in his room so he’s probably good in keeping them alive, and maybe he can help Matteo with it.

Time passes like dripping honey, every second feeling like it’s stretched out into infinity before it finally passes.

Matteo turns around. He’s never had much reason to come to the secretary’s office. He thinks he’s been here maybe three times in his entire school career, probably only to hand in some forms. He’s definitely never really taken a look at the enormous bulletin board hanging on the wall before.

It’s filled with flyers and announcements and pictures of past graduations. He looks at the students in the pictures and tries to imagine himself wearing one of those grins, holding up his own certificate, but he can’t quite conjure up the image in his mind just yet.

There’s a poster about a national essay competition, and one advertising a local football club that’s looking for new members. One flyer asks for volunteers for a model UN convention and Matteo is just considering sending a picture of it to Jonas when his eye catches on a different flyer.

It’s green and blue, slightly smaller than the rest of the notices hanging on the board and the heading reads ‘DEPRESSION’ in big, bold letters.

_Half of all mental health disorders will start by the age of 14, though many go undetected and undiagnosed. Depression is still one of the leading causes of illness and disability among adolescents. Not addressing mental health conditions during adolescence impairs people’s ability to live healthy, fulfilling lives as adults. Learn how to recognise the signs._

Something stutters in his chest, his brain recalibrating as he wants to look away but finds himself reading on instead, eyes sliding down towards the part labelled ‘SYMPTOMS’.

 _Withdrawing from other people_ , it says, _changes in weight and/or eating patterns_. _Fatigue or lack of energy. Changes in sleeping patterns. Increased anxiety or irritability. Problems with concentration. Feelings of hopelessness or worthlessness or excessive guilt almost every day._

Matteo feels nauseous as he keeps reading and rereading.

He wants to tear down the flyer.

He wants to run away.

He wants to throw up.

More than anything, he wants to stop looking at the stupid piece of paper but he can’t, he can’t stop seeing his mother in her bed, he can’t stop seeing Jonas’ face as Matteo yelled at him, he can’t stop thinking about Hanna telling him she misses him and how the only thing he could think at that moment was _why? I wouldn’t miss me._

 _Do you recognise yourself in these symptoms?_ the flyer asks.

It’s terrifying. It’s laughable.

 _This doesn’t mean anything_ , he tells himself. _None of these things mean anything. Everyone feels like that sometimes._

When his friends show up, it’s easier than ever to push it all away.

**_v._ **

David has a look.

Matteo has noticed by now that David likes looking at him. He’s learning to let it be, but it’s difficult, resisting the temptation to squirm and push at David’s face until he averts his eyes, grinning.

He knows David doesn’t do it to tease him. He just likes to look.

It’s probably because he’s an artist, Matteo argues to himself as he tries to return David’s look. Sometimes when he does it, David will start to smile, prompting Matteo to smile in in return, but sometimes he’ll just look.

Like he’s fascinated. Like he’s drinking Matteo in.

They’ve said _I love you_ to each other already, but there’s something about this particular look in David’s eyes that will unfurl something in Matteo’s chest, little touches of warmth creeping all across his body.

Most of the time, it’s a look that will make him feel grounded, tethered to this thing they have, this unimaginable, wonderful, fantastical thing that he is _allowed_ to have, apparently.

But sometimes –

(Today–)

Sometimes the look is a whirlwind to the precariously balancing penny that is Matteo’s mental state, causing it to fall to the wrong side.

It hasn’t been a good day. Matteo’s exhausted, even though he’s been asleep for most of it. And when he wakes up, he feels exhausted about being exhausted, and he feels like shit for not having showered that morning, and he thinks he should be worried that David thinks he’s gross but he can’t even manage to feel anxious right now.

It’s the worst it’s been since everything’s calmed down for them.

David can tell. Of course he can.

The smile that had been beginning to form to attempt to tease one out of Matteo as well drops, and he searches Matteo’s face, which only makes Matteo feel worse.

He doesn’t want David to have to see this.

“What is it?” David asks quietly.

Matteo doesn’t reply. He looks at the pattern on his duvet. He doesn’t remember buying it.

Even though he’s not looking at him, Matteo knows David’s still paying close attention. That’s another thing David has shown to be very good at – being impossibly patient with Matteo. Most of the time, Matteo doesn’t even have patience with himself, so of course he doesn’t expect others to have it with him either.

He can’t say _I’m afraid I can make you hate me_ , so he goes with the next best thing, words he has now practiced and prepared so many times in his head that he thinks he just has to remind himself how to start and then they will spill.

“I’m not okay, sometimes.”

It feels stupid and way too obvious to say it like that after the day they’ve had, and Matteo focuses on a loose piece of thread on the duvet for the longest time before daring to glance up.

He probably shouldn’t be surprised at what he faces when he finally meets David’s eye.

There is no confusion there. Just a little furrow between his brows that tells Matteo he’s listening carefully. Mostly, he looks calm. Not exactly like he expected to hear those words come out of Matteo’s mouth, more like he’s not entirely surprised that they did. And he stays quiet, in that gentle way that allows Matteo to take his time gathering his thoughts before he continues.

He tries a couple of times to start but he finds his voice gets caught somewhere along the way up his throat every time, and _why the fuck does this have to be so hard even after he took the first step_.

“How do you mean?” David asks, and it’s more an attempt to find Matteo an in than a question, but Matteo is grateful nonetheless.

“Some days,” Matteo says, his voice barely above a whisper, and when he continues the words come out slowly as he pushes them across an intangible threshold, “I can’t get out of bed at all. I don’t want to do anything. It’s like there’s this invisible wall between me and the rest of the world. Everything is dulled. But then sometimes, everything feels too loud instead… I don’t know.”

He looks away again, finds it’s easier to talk when staring at the familiar cracks in his ceiling until his eyes start to hurt and the pain draws him away from his own overthinking.

David stays silent for a while and Matteo feels himself tense, wonders if he’s crossed a line. He knows David notices his moods, but to do this, edge as close to naming it as he dares at this point–

“Do you feel like that a lot?”

Matteo scans his voice for any trace of judgement, or wariness, but he comes up empty. He’s not sure if that’s because it’s the truth or because his mind loves playing tricks on him.

He swallows, then shrugs.

“Not a lot.” The lie feels ugly in his mouth but he’s just – if he can just bring it like this, like it’s manageable, like it doesn’t tear away at him so much that sometimes he’s afraid he’ll wake up one day and there’ll be nothing left, maybe then he won’t scare David away. “Sometimes it’s worse than other times. Sometimes it’s just– a day, or so.”

“And other times?”

A beat.

“Longer.”

David shifts on the mattress, prompting Matteo to look over for a moment, only to find David mirroring his own position, looking up.

“When was the last time it lasted longer?”

Matteo stares at the ceiling for as long as he can, until he can tell himself the tears welling up in the corners of his eyes are from the burn of keeping his eyes open rather than anything else. He doesn’t really want to reply, but he feels like he owes it to David to not keep it from him.

“After I– came by your place, the first time,” he says finally. “The week after that.”

Matteo sees something tense in David’s jaw for a couple of seconds, until it relaxes again, and David breathes out slowly. He doesn’t apologise, which Matteo is glad for. David has apologised for what he said then before, and Matteo understands – understands David and understands that the mess his mind got up to in the week following wasn’t David’s fault.

There’s another shift on the mattress as David turns on his side and some part of Matteo wants to follow him, turn as well so he can look at David and let himself be at ease with the familiarity of his features.

Instead, he forces himself to lie very still, and not look away from the ceiling.

“Okay,” David says, and it doesn’t even sound angry, or sad.

When David stays quiet once again, Matteo knows that’s his cue to talk. He doesn’t understand why David would want that, why he wants to hear Matteo say these words that make the world so much darker, and uglier, and harder.

Because that’s the only way to figure out quickly if Matteo is too messed up to be around?

Because he cares about Matteo and would willingly expose himself to Matteo’s whining and messiness and ragged edges to help him?

As the silence lasts, a familiar ugliness rears up in Matteo’s chest.

Suddenly, he doesn’t want David’s calm voice, or gentleness, or patience, except that he does, he wants all those things so much that it’s going to rip him apart at the seams, but he knows he doesn’t deserve any of it and that knowledge, usually too awful to look at for too long, he now forces himself to face anyway.

He thinks about all the things he’s done, and all the things he still does.

“Sometimes I don’t leave my room for days. I smoke, and I don’t shower, or clean up. I get angry with everyone for no reason.”

David hums, which only serves to frustrate (terrify) Matteo more. 

“I do bad things. Hurt people, even if they try to help. I broke up Hanna and Jonas, just because I was jealous. I ignored my mum when she needed help. When you told me to fuck off, I just took it out on Amira and Jonas and Hans.”

He knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he’s meddling with the truth of things, that he’s testing the limits.

How many awful things will he have to say before David leaves, realises this – Matteo – isn’t worth it, not worth the pain or the effort or the tainted memories?

“Have you talked to anyone else about this?”

Matteo doesn’t reply, as he tries to muster fight, but finds himself coming up empty, hollowness taking over where there was fear.

He’s not sure which is worse.

“Matteo.”

After a couple of seconds, Matteo finally turns on his side, now focusing on a loose thread on the jumper David is wearing.

(Some day, he’ll manage to unravel everything within his reach.)

The jumper is Matteo’s favourite, the old slouchy one that David teasingly calls his grandpa jumper, and that Matteo will pretend to get frustrated over whenever David steals it, even though he secretly likes that afterwards it will smell like him.

When he finally looks up, he finds David’s eyes already settled on him.

If David were anyone else, this would make Matteo want to hide, shut down, deflect, but it _is_ David, and there is something in the way he looks now…

It’s different than before. He’s not just looking at Matteo. There’s an openness, Matteo thinks at first, a kind of unflinching bravery in the face of Matteo’s devastation.

Then, David reaches out and links his pinkie with Matteo’s where his hand is lying lonely in between their bodies, and Matteo thinks, _oh_ , when he finally recognises what he sees in David’s eyes, something he’s seen there before; at the back of the school smoking when David was still a complete mystery to him and Matteo said _I just want to get away_ , and countless times since then in glimpses and flashes.

Not pity. Not compassion.

Understanding.

Matteo doesn’t know why he continues to be floored by that when David proves time and time again that he sees Matteo. That he understands him, even if Matteo doesn’t understand himself, even if Matteo doesn’t _want_ to understand himself.

He’s never seen it like that, in anyone. It’s not like Jonas knowing Matteo well enough to know how to work around his low days, no matter how well-intentioned. It’s not like the recognition he felt when he saw his mum was unable to get out of bed for days in a row.

It’s David saying _I know_ , and it’s Matteo believing him.

He’s not sure what he’s feeling, until David says, “You don’t have to feel like this.”

Matteo thinks maybe, just maybe, it’s relief.

“We don’t have to talk more about it now,” David continues quietly, and the relief floods further, “but I think… maybe it’d be good if we do talk about it more. Later. When you’re ready.”

The idea of having to look closer at this part of himself that terrifies him on a good day petrifies Matteo. His seams are already so threadbare, not much is needed to tear them apart entirely. But then David squeezes his pinkie, and Matteo breathes – shakily, but he breathes.

He nods, and David nods back.

**_+1_ **

The room isn’t the clinical white he’d expected it to be. There is a desk with a laptop and small stacks of files. The floor is all warm woods, creaking a little as he steps inside. The space is bright thanks to the wall lined with big windows.

There are four chairs, and immediately Matteo feels the anxiety that’s been brimming in his stomach all day threaten to overflow.

Where is he supposed to sit? What if he sits in the wrong chair and she’ll tell him he’s sitting in the wrong chair and he’ll have fucked up the literal easiest part of this whole thing?

He doesn’t know if she – _Anna_ , he reminds himself – notices his hesitation, but she sits down in one of the chairs, and he sits down across from her.

There’s an open space between them. No tables, no desks.

No barriers.

Matteo doesn’t know where to look.

As he was sitting in the waiting room earlier, this paralysing fear had taken hold of him.

This idea that maybe, maybe he would go in, and he would tell her what he told David about how he struggles to leave his room, his bed, his own brain.

This idea that she would take one look at him, and all she’d think was that he’s just another lazy, washed out, smoking teenage boy.

This idea that maybe he is.

Fuck.

 _Fuck_.

What if he is, and he’s here just pretending something’s fucking wrong with him when all that’s wrong with him is that he’s an asshole, and she’ll hear one thing that he has to say and _know_ and she’ll tell him to get over himself, and then he’ll have to go back to David and tell _him_ –

“So, Matteo,” she says, and he tries to meet her eye, but finds himself struggle to do so. When he finally does, she smiles at him. “What brings you here?”

He blanks.

He’d known, somewhere, that he’d have to explain, but now that he’s sitting here the idea of trying to put into words what’s wrong with him feels almost futile. There’s so much, and at the same time everything that comes to mind feels insufficient.

He thinks about what he told David, months ago now. _I’m not okay, sometimes_. It feels too vague to offer this person, this professional who’s been trained to see right through him.

Part of him wishes she could crack open his skull and see right inside, see all the messy, and the horrible, and the terrifying that’s hiding there, just so he wouldn’t have to explain. The mortifying ordeal of being known is nothing to his paralysing inability to just open his fucking mouth and speak.

But Anna doesn’t say anything. She waits.

His thoughts drift, briefly, to David (as they are prone to do) and he thinks of David’s gentle prodding, of David waiting for him in the park across the street right now, of David understanding him. It makes his throat close up just thinking about it.

Anna is still waiting.

How much time has passed? Has he been sitting here in silence for minutes? What is she thinking of him right now? Has she made up her mind yet?

He desperately tries to find words, any words, that will convey everything he feels, and everything he struggles with, and everything he needs, because his heart is pounding and if he doesn’t get this right on the first try she’ll surely write him off. She will. He would.

But when no magic words come to him, he knows he still has to say something, and so finally, he picks ones that he knows will still be whole when he says them out loud, because he’s said them before.

“I scare away my friends.”

It’s shit, and it isn’t anything, and he’s convinced he’s fucked this up already, but Anna simply nods.

“That’s can’t be a good feeling,” she says. She doesn’t write anything down. She just looks at him, waiting, and her expression hasn’t changed. After a couple of seconds, she nods again, prompting him to go on.

“I worry a lot, about a lot of things.”

“Such as?”

 _I’m worried I’ll feel like this forever_. No. That’s too much at once.

“I’m worried because I don’t know what to do with my life. I feel like I’m stuck.” Hanna’s words taste unfamiliar on his tongue, but when he says them, they feel right.

Slowly, over the course of the next forty-five minutes, she tries to get him to talk about his life. His time at school, his friends, and even briefly, his parents.

It’s like pulling teeth. He doesn’t understand why she doesn’t sound exasperated with him yet, when his go-to answer is a brief _yes_ or _no,_ or worst of all, _I don’t know_. 

The knowledge that she’s here to help does nothing for the resistance he feels every time she asks him to elaborate on anything. It triggers a physical reaction, his stomach feeling like it drops miles every time.

And every time he shrugs, he hates himself just a little bit more.

It’s just that these thoughts, these thoughts he’s been milling over for years, and the ones he’d pushed away so far he didn’t even remember he had them until they suddenly flicker and burn painfully again… He’s spent so long locking them up, stowing them away somewhere no one would ever have to look at them, every part of him rejects letting them out now.

 _How fucked up is it that you can’t even do therapy right?_ his brain supplies. _How fucked up that you can’t even accept help when it’s offered to you on a silver platter?_

Somehow, though, Anna isn’t deterred. If she is frustrated with him, she doesn’t show it, just keeps nodding at his bare minimum answers like they’re actually worth something.

“It sounds like you’ve gone through a lot,” she says at some point. “Life hasn’t been easy on you, has it?”

Matteo’s heart stumbles. He has no idea what to say to that. Part of him wants to deny it immediately. Another part of him wants to cry.

“You disagree?” she asks.

Matteo just shrugs, tries to ignore the burning feeling in his eyes. She’s quiet for a bit before moving on, but the words stick with him. 

It only dawns on him later. As the end of the session nears, and Anna talks about the way their sessions will proceed after this first one, he realises she really wasn’t expecting him to lay bare his entire being today.

The thought is both astounding and astoundingly obvious.

This was only a beginning. Only the barest of starts. And that should be scary, should make him think of the long road he has ahead, should make him think of all the shit he’ll have to face, and fumble, and fight, but it doesn’t.

Or it does, but it’s not just that.

Before he walked into the building today, David had put both his hands on Matteo’s shoulders and told him, “It’s okay. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself.”

Matteo had thought he was saying as a way of getting him to stop freaking out, but now he thinks maybe David was trying to get him to see this, instead. That no one is expecting him to be different – _better_ – all of a sudden.

This one session, it doesn’t mean anything yet. Nothing is set in stone.

“What do you think about that?” Anna asks him then, and Matteo feels a mix of overwhelm and gratitude at the question.

He doesn’t really know what he thinks about her plan. Even though he knew it probably wouldn’t work like that, part of him had just expected her to tell him to take steps a, b, and c, no discussion. This Is How You Fix Yourself. Now go do it. 

She seems to sense his hesitation. “It’s something to start with, maybe. We’ll evaluate after a couple of weeks, and if you don’t feel like this is working for you, we can talk about that and adjust accordingly. And I’m not saying this to discourage you, but we don’t always get things exactly right the first time. It’s a learning curve. We make progress a step at a time.”

A tiny part of him wants to ask, _so you think I can be fixed_? But he knows that’s pathetic, so he doesn’t. He does register the way she said _we_ , and that’s something.

Ten minutes later he’s outside, spring breeze and sunlight hitting his face. He can see David sitting in the grass, sketchbook in hand, gnawing at the back of his pencil as he stares off into the distance.

As soon as he reaches him, Matteo collapses half on the grass, half on David’s lap, and closes his eyes. Now that the adrenaline that had been building up until the appointment has left the premises, he feels weary to the bone.

“You’re heavy,” David complains.

“Sounds like a you-problem,” Matteo replies. David doesn’t shove him off, though, so he counts it as a victory.

For a moment it’s quiet as David runs a hand through Matteo’s hair.

“Hey.”

Matteo opens his eyes. “Hey.”

They look at each other for a couple of seconds.

“Yeah?”

Matteo swallows. Looks away. Nods. 

“Okay.”

He closes his eyes again. There’s a bird chirping in the distance.

“Made another appointment next week,” he mutters.

“Okay.”

David’s hand doesn’t stop moving through his hair.

“Gonna sleep now.”

David hums, fondly.

He feels the cool grass beneath his fingers. There are voices from a group of kids too far away to really hear what they’re yelling about. Somewhere, a car honks.

 _I went to therapy today_ , Matteo thinks, trying out the thought. 

He waits.

The world keeps on going.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on [tumblr](http://valterzn.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/valterzens)!


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